


exegetic chains

by cryptidgay



Series: things you said / blaseball prompt fics [1]
Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Character Undeath, Death, Ficlet, Gen, Mike & Jaylen Friendship, The Trench
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:39:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27930115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cryptidgay/pseuds/cryptidgay
Summary: If Jaylen thinks about it, she can remember catching flame. She tries not to think about it. She tries not to think about anything.(Or: Jaylen is afraid, and Mike knows what he's gotta do.)
Relationships: Jaylen Hotdogfingers & Mike Townsend
Series: things you said / blaseball prompt fics [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2046602
Comments: 4
Kudos: 24





	exegetic chains

**Author's Note:**

> for the prompt "things you said when you were scared" from [this list,](https://rogueumpire.tumblr.com/post/636801214589304832/send-me-a-ship-and-one-of-these-and-ill-write-a) prompted by tam!
> 
> title from exegetic chains by the mountain goats. 
> 
> **warnings:** dissociation, death, self-sacrifice.

It’s been years since Jaylen has spoken to another person.

It’s been almost as long since she’s  _ seen _ another person. They must be around here, somehow — she pitches balls that are half-smoke, and hears the crack of a bat connecting every few throws, and somebody  _ must _ be holding the bat, somebody must be running the bases. There’s no scoreboard, no way to keep track of who is winning, and she doesn’t even know what  _ team _ she’s on; she looks down and her jersey has turned grayscale, and when she turns her hand it does not feel like her own. The movement is achingly distant from whatever neurons firing caused it to happen. When she turns it a certain way, it’s still on fire.

She tries not to think about it. She’s just action and action and more action, detached from her own being — the world numb static around her, and the blaseballs keep appearing in her hand, and how long has she been here, anyways?

If she thinks about it, she can remember catching flame. She tries not to think about it.

She tries not to think about anything.

There’s no sound — not even the dull rush of blood, pulse-beating, because her pulse doesn’t  _ beat _ anymore — until there  _ is, _ until the void is filled with a voice she does not know how to process coming from somewhere she can’t quite see. A blank spot. An afterimage, staring at a bright light and leaving a hole in your vision.

She blinks. Doesn’t know when the last time she did that is. She tries to focus.

When she croaks out a  _ “what?”, _ it’s incinerated at the edges; she sounds like she’s been smoking three packs a day for a hundred years; she sounds like she burned to death; she sounds like she hasn’t said a goddamn word to anyone in a hundred thousand years. The latter two might be true.

“Jay,” the voice says. When she blinks again, she can make out a face, half-there. A hand, pressing against her arm. God, when’s the last time anyone touched her? She was with the team, when she — when the ump — when it happened. Must have been standing next to — Mike.

And suddenly, he’s solid in front of her.

“Mike?” Her voice is shaking, and all of a sudden, the whole cacophony of feeling she’s repressed for the last few years comes flooding down on her all at once; fear and fear and fear, loneliness and anger and self-mourning at the corners of her mind. “No,” she says, voice not  _ strong _ but getting closer. “No, Mike, you can’t be here —”

Because if he’s here, that means he died, too. The thought crystalizes and turns her mind to ice.

“It’s okay, Jaylen,” Mike says.

He sounds so  _ sure, _ and that, more than anything, solidifies her panic: something about this is wrong. Mike Townsend has never been sure about any choice he’s made in his fucking life. In college, he used to make Jaylen decide his pizza toppings for him, too indecisive to make even that absolutely inane decision.

“The fuck it is,” she says. She’d be shouting it if she could make her voice cooperate. It hasn’t stopped its trembling. She looks down at her hands and they’re shaking, too. “What the  _ fuck, _ Mike? Did you die? Did we both —”

She trails off. Mike picks up. “I didn’t — not exactly —”

“What does that mean?”

“They figured out how to get you back.”

It’s a whisper. It’s the loudest thing she’s heard in years. It’s hopeful and it’s terrifying and — he’s not looking at her, not really, he won’t meet her eyes, and  _ something’s wrong. _

“What,” she says, slowly, “does that mean?”

A long moment goes by, Jaylen looking at Mike, Mike not quite looking at Jaylen.

He wraps his arms around her. (It’s the first time she’s felt  _ anything _ in an unfathomable amount of time, and it’s  _ too much, _ and still she wouldn’t push him away if her fucking life depended on it.) “Kick their asses up there, Jay,” he says, words muffled in her shoulder. “Take ‘em to the championships. Was always gonna be you who won it for us, not me.”

There’s something under the words that she can’t get to, can’t dig deep enough in the gravedirt to find the meaning behind — what the fuck does that mean,  _ it’ll be her and not him, _ what does it mean  _ they figured out how to get her back, _ how is Mike  _ here _ if he didn’t “exactly” die? Why does it sound like a goodbye when this should be a reunion? She died and left her best friend behind and now he’s  _ back _ and it is, somehow, an event with mourning laced through every breath (on his end) and notable lack of breath (on hers).

“Michael Townsend, stop being fucking  _ ominous _ and tell me —”  _ tell me something, tell me anything. _ The words choke off mid-sentence. 

“The band’ll fill you in,” Mike says. When he takes a step back, stops hugging her, leaves her alone entirely (if she closes her eyes and no longer sees him in front of her then she’ll be all alone again, like she has been for so long, with no hope of saving) — he’s smiling. It’s sad around the edges, but it’s a smile, nonetheless. “Bye, Jay.”

And he grabs her hand and he shoves her into the van the Garages have waiting on the outfield, the van she somehow failed to notice until now despite its lights blazing a path through the darkness brighter than anything she thinks she’s ever seen in her life-or-death, and —

The last thing she sees before passing out, out the windows into the void, is Mike, halfway faded out of existence, the headlights shining through him more than on him. She tries to wave. The thought doesn’t connect to the action, and her hand, smoke still coming off of it, stays in her lap.

**Author's Note:**

> [feel free to send in blaseball prompts to my tumblr if you want!](https://rogueumpire.tumblr.com/post/636801214589304832/send-me-a-ship-and-one-of-these-and-ill-write-a) comment if you liked this, it'll make my day!


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